‘It was one of those perfect storms': Matty Simmons on Animal House

If you have laughed at any point since 1970, there’s a good chance Matty Simmons might have played a small part in it. As the publisher of the original National Lampoon magazine, and the overseer of the brand that went on to produce comedy albums, stage shows and movies, Simmons introduced the world to some of the funniest people of the ’70s and ’80s — John Belushi, Bill Murray, Harold Ramis, John Hughes, etc. — and produced most of the comedy that influenced the next generation of funny people, too. Coming to Toronto to reunite with the Animal House team as part of TIFF’s series TOGA! The Reinvention of American Comedy, Simmons caught up with us over the phone from his L.A. home to discuss the founding of Lampoon, why humour should be “redeemably funny” and his magazine’s long, long reach.

I know you started off in publishing, but how did you end up at the head of this comedy empire?
I was in publishing. I was publishing a couple of magazines, including Weight Watchers magazine, believe it or not. It was very successful. My friend called me and said he had these kids from Harvard who were publishing this parody of Life magazine, and I think you ought to meet them. There wasn’t much I could do, because it was wrapping in two weeks, and it lost a lot of money — which Harvard Lampoon put up. But it was so well done, and so funny — I was so impressed with them, I said, ‘Let’s do another one.’ I was there from the beginning, so I supervised everything … and it made back all their money. We got very close over that time, and they were graduating, so we talked about doing a monthly magazine. We made a deal with Harvard for the Lampoon name and April 1970 was the first issue of National Lampoon.

You mention their talent, but what specifically about their sense of humour made you think this could work, or it needed a broader audience?
They were brilliant, and a lot of the writers — I don’t know if you’re aware of it, but some of the greatest writers of the past while …

Oh, yeah, of course.
John Hughes, Larry David, on and on. The guys who did the Simpsons, people who did Friends. And, most notably, nearly all the actors and writers from early Saturday Night Live came from Lampoon and the Lampoon Radio Hour.

In those initial stages, did you have any sense of how far these guys could go, or were they just funny guys?
The incredible thing about the Lampoon is that — I know there was good, obviously. I was a writer by trade, everything else was kind of an accident, so I could tell it was good. But everything we did was successful. We did a radio show, it was the biggest radio show in America. We came out with a play, Lemmings, it was sold out for two years. Did another one, that was jammed, and we took it on the road. Matter of fact, we played it in Toronto at the El Mocambo, which is where I met Ivan Reitman.

How? At the venue?
Ivan was one of the producers of this show in Toronto called The Magic Hour, and had produced a couple low-budget movies in Canada. My son, who was 17 at the time, was the road manager for the show, The National Lampoon Show. The cast of that show, incidentally, was Belushi, Bill Murray, Gilda Radner, Harold Ramis.

Jesus?
On and on. Anyway, my son would watch the show night after night, and Ivan would come and sit next to him every night and say, ‘I’d love to meet your father,’ what have you.

It had to be funny, but it had to wake you up. I don’t want to use the word shocking, but it had to have a jolt to it

The spirit of National Lampoon at the time seems to be summed up pretty well by Animal House. What was it about that sense of humour that caught people?
We had a thing called Matty’s Rule at the magazine, which was that you could say anything you wanted to say, as long as it was redeemably funny. And I think we reached that with Animal House. At the time, a lot of people thought we had crossed the line with it. Now, it’s like nighttime television — family hour is rougher than Animal House.

What made something redeemably funny, then?
That was always down to the line. A writer or editor would think it was, and I or the other editors wouldn’t, although nearly always we agreed. It was just as I say: it had to be funny, but it had to wake you up. I don’t want to use the word shocking, but it had to have a jolt to it. And Animal House did, and the magazine certainly did.

I know you had some trouble getting Animal House made, initially. Once it became such a success, did you kind of feel you could do whatever you wanted?
Yeah [laughing] I always felt bad about feeling that. But like I said, everything we did just turned to gold. In later years, I had a few things that didn’t work. But I did five Vacation movies, you know, and they were all very successful. Christmas Vacation is one of the biggest Christmas movies of all time.

I watch it every year.
That’s good to hear.

Besides their success, though, the Lampoon things, especially in the ’70s and ’80s — Vacation and Meatballs and so on — has had a pretty lasting effect, particularly on the comedy writers who were sort of teens around that time. What do you make of the influence it’s had?
Whenever I do book signings or screenings, I run into thousands of people who were younger then, and they just — I was at a dinner party the other night, and this guy brought a Lemmings record, and this guy said, ‘I grew up on this. This was my life.’ A lot of younger people — and some of them aren’t so younger anymore, but even people younger than them, grew up on Animal House. They know lines and scenes, they’ll act them out for me. The lines are memorable — that’s one of things that made it so spectacular. There are lines that have been quoted forever: ‘Seven years of college down the drain.’

Well, yeah, that Belushi poster is still in dorms.
Belushi of course was spectacular. But the casting was letter perfect all around. It was one of those perfect storms where everybody came together. That’s how a great movie gets made: everyone has to do their job perfectly.

When did you recognize that perfect storm aspect of it?
I’m such an egotist that I recognized it right from the beginning. I thought everything we did was great! I really like that satirical humour, so I was on board right away.

What was it, do you think, that brought people to National Lampoon’s humour?
I will tell you what the most important element of the Lampoon and Animal House: relatability. Every guy who ever hung out with a bunch of guys, said Delta was their gang, their group. The stories in the Lampoon — we didn’t do a lot of political stuff, we did stuff about growing up with your parents and growing up with your friends, love life, those kinds of things that really hit home. People related to it, and they totally related to Animal House. I have rarely gone anywhere where somebody hasn’t said, ‘Oh, Animal House, that was me. I was that guy. My friend was Bluto.’ I must have had 1000 people say to me, ‘That was based on my fraternity.’ It wasn’t, it wasn’t really anyone’s fraternity. But it’s everyone.

Why do you think that hadn’t been explored much before? Why that time?
I don’t think it’s the time, I just think it was good. You get into something when it really hits the mark and really appeals to you. And that picture did, and still does. I get the reports: It is on television somewhere in the world almost every day of the year.